Organic Pie Crust Dough Ingredients

A measuring cup of cold water – I usually use my 2 cup measuring cup, and simply take what I need as I make the crust.

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Steps to making homemade organic pie crust:

Mix your flour and salt in a large bowl.

Add organic shortening.

Use a basic pasty dough blender to cut in your shortening. Working in organic shortening is very different from working in, say Crisco. Organic is softer, so it won’t take long at all. Use you pastry blender to sort of mix, scoop and blend the shortening into the flour evenly, until it resembles little pea-sized pieces of flour + shortening.

Grab a tablespoon and drizzle about 3-4 tablespoons of the cold water over your dough. Use a silicone spatula or your hands to incorporate the water into the flour mixture. Add more water as needed to make a dough that JUST sticks together. With this dough it usually only takes about 7-9 tablespoons of water in total. Work quickly and efficiently. The less time you spend doing this the better.

Gather half of your dough into a ball – but barely mess with it. Your ball doesn’t have to be perfect.

Place your ball of dough on a flat, flour sprinkled surface, then sprinkle more flour on top.

Use your rolling pin to roll out a sheet of dough that will fit your pie plate. If you don’t roll it out in a perfect circle, that’s fine, but don’t try to re-knead and then re-roll it – that’s how you get a tougher pie crust. You want the dough barely worked over.

Fold your dough into half, then half again, to make it easy to pick up. Place it in your pie plate and unfold it.

Situate pie dough as needed and make a fancy edge if you like. (see fancy edge how-to tips at the end of this post).

Fill with filling of choice and add top crust if necessary. Bake, eat and enjoy your pie.

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